5 bundling ideas for BFCM: the easiest way to grow your average order value

“Black Friday 50% OFF is here early!” “CYBER MONDAY — Up to 40% off + Free Shipping Storewide!” “FLASH SALE | Enjoy 20% Off” — so read the emails that flood millions of inboxes during the holiday season. Black Friday, once a one-day sale, now spans several weeks, with shoppers searching for the highest discounts on the web.

Luckily, deep discounts aren’t the only way to motivate your customers this holiday season, nor are they necessarily healthy for your bottom line. Instead, you can create sustainable promotions for a profitable holiday season by increasing your average order value (AOV) with product bundles. Whether you’re preparing for BFCM, the holiday season, or other peak shopping times of the year, change the game and create bundles customers love, while retaining a healthy profit margin for your business.

Lume Cube doubles its average order value by offering bundles. Riley, the co-founder of Lume Cube says, “most of our customers know little about light. By building our best-selling bundle, we were able to build the path of trust for our customers while also offering a slight bundle discount”

At Simple Bundles, we see unique and strategic bundles built every day that benefit both the merchants and their customers. Here are our top 5 favourite bundle types!

The curated bundle

Nobody knows you’re products quite like you do, and in a store setting, you’d likely give your customers tips for which products would suit them the best and which products might go well together. Creating a curated bundle is an easy way to convey your message in your online shop. Intelligentsia pairs coffee equipment like the Chemex, with coffee filters and coffee beans; it’s exactly what a customer would need for the full coffee-making experience. Like Intelligentsia, you could even go a step further and create a quiz that helps your customers find introductory bundles based on their preferences.

Glossier also does a superb job at creating curated bundles such as the “Essential Edit”. This bundle helps Glossier create a “trust us” moment for their customers while eliminating any decision fatigue that new customers might encounter when discovering and evaluating a new brand.

The buy more, save more bundle

If you sell products that are household staples or products that you can just never have too much of (like the O.G cookie from The Very Best Cookie in the Whole Wide World), you can offer bundles with a bulk discount.

In both examples from Sukoshi Mart and The Very Best Cookie, they offer multi-pack bundles that work well for the specific product they’re selling. Sukoshi Mart also clearly advertises the bundle with badges on their catalogue and product page. With the holidays coming up, you can also bundle multiple products that could be given away separately as gifts.

We also love Choc Exchange’s bundle subscriptions, which incentives customers to sign up for 3-months at a time with a 15% discount. This allows for an increase in cash flow, more predictable revenue, and lower churn — all while benefiting your customers!

The mix-and-match bundle

Up next is our mix-and-match bundle. It allows you to give your customers flexibility and personalization. If you have multiple variants of a product or multiple pieces that come together in a kit, this bundle type might be perfect for your store.

Fjallraven lets its customers pick fabric colours and zipper colours, giving an endless number of combinations. Landyatz does the same by allowing brands to build their own skateboard.

The mystery bag

Another one of our favourites is the mystery box, but it can be difficult to get right. We recommend creating mystery boxes if you have a loyal customer base because a lot of people assume that companies use mystery bags as a way to get rid of excess or slow-moving inventory. Instead, you can have your bundle contents have ranged from an assortment of best-selling items to an all-new surprise item to a limited-edition collection. It’s also a great way to introduce your customers to new brands that they might otherwise not have tried.

This Kid’s mystery bag from Tentree is a perfect example. The bundle description along with the positive reviews also help to alleviate concerns and convince new buyers to make the purchase.

The add-on or free-gift bundle

Finally, we love how Celsia Floral upsells its products by allowing customers to add other products to complement the main offering. With a DIY flower bundle, customers can choose to add a design supply kit or a vase.

Ulta, known for its quality free gifts, allows its customers to try new products and samples. The idea is that once your customers try a new product for free, they’ll be more confident in paying full price for the same product. Giving away your product for free can feel a little daunting. But don’t let that dissuade you. Free samples have been proven to boost sales by as much as 2,000%.

Once you’ve created your bundles, you can start preparing for an uptick in demand for these products.

Ready to start creating product bundles?

If you’re looking to set up bundles quickly on Shopify, check out Simple Bundles. Simple Bundles break down your bundles into their components to automatically deduct inventory for each product so that you can easily pick and pack your orders. Make sure to also check out our help center to find more bundle examples.

In the spirit of creating bundles and promotions, if you use both our apps: Simple Bundles and Freshly: Batch Inventory & Expiry Dates, you’ll get 50% off your Simple Bundles monthly subscription!

Here’s to a successful BFCM and holiday season! 🥂

Simple Bundles is the fastest way to send order details with multi-SKU bundles and kits to 3PLs, WMS, shipping software, and other third-party integrations (e.g. ShipStation and Fulfillment by Amazon).

Visit us at simplebundles.io or install Simple Bundles for FREE on the Shopify app store.